Singing the Itch

This June, in “The Itch,” Atul Gawande wrote about a woman called M. who couldn’t stop scratching an itch on her head, so much so that, at some point, she scratched all the way to her brain. It was a gruesome read for some of us—little, imaginary itches began to sprout, and it was impossible not to scratch. But for the singer-songwriter Teddy Blanks, it was an inspiration. Blanks remembers reading the article one day on the train and was, as he puts it, “squirming in my seat.” Later that night, as he tried to write, he saw The New Yorker on his bedside table. Unable to get Gawande’s words out of his head, he composed his own “Itch,” a little ditty about, well, itching. As Blanks explains:

If I sang “She’s Got the Itch” in the right way, it sounded less like a chronic condition and more like an antiquated fifties dance move. I wanted a pace and rhythm that felt itchy in some way. All of the sounds and riffs, even down to the beat, are jumpy and repetitive. I wanted you to be able to scratch an itch in time to the song, if for some reason you might have one while listening.